Daily Times

UNITED NATIONS: Pakistan has called on the United Nations to step up its efforts and urgently resolve the Kashmir dispute in a bid to halt Indian atrocities in the disputed territory and prevent  a threat to regional and global peace and security.

“Peace and security must remain at the core of the functions of the United Nations,” Ambassador Munir Akram told the UN General Assembly on Friday while commenting on the report of the UN chief on the work of the Organization.

“We urge the Security Council and the Secretary-General to exercise their considerable authority to promote an early and peaceful resolution of the Jammu and Kashmir dispute and to end the Indian reign of terror against the Kashmiri people”, the Pakistani envoy said in a well-reasoned speech.

The United Nations and the Secretary-General , he said, can do “much more” to address peace and security threats by fully using the authority provided by the United Nations Charter, such as in Article 99, and by taking action in the General Assembly if the Security Council is unable to do so.

The primary threat in South Asia, the Pakistani envoy said, is posed by the dispute over Jammu and Kashmir and India’s attempt to annex and transform the Muslim majority state into a Hindu majority territory, a grave violation of Council resolutions that promised Kashmiris their right to self-determination through a United Nations supervised plebiscite.

Detailing extensive illegal actions taken by India, which he condemned, Ambassador Akram urged the Council and the Secretary-General to promote an early, peaceful end to the dispute.

He cited the rise of racial and religious hate and violence, with Islamophobia among its gravest manifestations, notably as characterized by lynching and calls for genocide of Muslims in India.

“The worst manifestation of Islamophobia is the officially-inspired campaign of the ‘Hindutva’ adherents in India against Muslims.”

So far, the Pakistan envoy noted,  there has been no accountability for India’s crimes. Draconian Indian laws provide complete impunity to the 900,000 troops India had deployed in occupied Jammu and Kashmir.

Pakistan condemned the increasing harassment, illegal arrests and registration of fake criminal cases against journalists and civil society activists such as Khurram Pervez, in occupied Kashmir. The recent attack and ban on the Kashmir Press Club, he said, is another manifestation of India’s entrenched use of brute force and coercion to silence all those who raise their voice against its criminal and genocidal acts in occupied Jammu and Kashmir.

Ambassador Akram also drew attention to the statement made recently by the Head of “Genocide Watch”, Professor Gregory Stanton, in which he stated: “We are warning that genocide could very well happen in India.”

“We call on the Secretary-General and the United Nations to take decisive steps to combat Islamophobia and to prevent the danger of genocide against the Muslims of India.”

At the outset,  the Pakistan envoy welcomed the United Nations mobilization of humanitarian and other assistance for Afghanistan, calling last September’s Flash Appeal and the recent $5 billion appeal “timely and essential”.

Similarly, the United Nations role in peacekeeping is a major success and Pakistan will remain a steadfast partner in ensuring the effectiveness of such operations, notably the United Nations Military Observer Group for India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP), stationed in the disputed Jammu and Kashmir region.

He went on to welcome the Secretary-General’s call to address inequality and promote universal vaccination on an emergency basis, endorsing the call to restructure the global financial architecture and provide financial resources to help developing countries recover from the pandemic.